Thursday, January 26, 2012

Inquirer: MICROCRISIS is "Big Fun," "Dynamically Wacky," "Deceptively Smart"



Check out these excerpts from Howard Shapiro's review of MICROCRISIS from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Kevin Bergen (as Bennett)
and Bi Jean Ngo (as Clare)
Bankers are lending big money to poor folks who can never pay it back, Ivy League whiz-kids are developing new ways to get interest on that cash, financial watchdogs grant high ratings to every scammer, the feds turn all their cheeks, and in the play Microcrisis - can you believe it? - it's all big fun. Granted, you can argue fine points about the financial stuff, but not about the fun factor of Microcrisis, in InterAct Theatre Company’s dynamically wacky production...

Mike Lew’s satire, in which the New York-based playwright takes everyone in the international financial crisis to extremes, is an all-out goof... Lews' play is aptly stupid in its depictions and deceptively smart in its construction. Every character represents some faceless part of the real crisis...

Four of the six-member cast play multiple roles, the particularly flexible Frank X among them... The show-stealer, though, is Bi Jean Ngo, as the securities rating executive whose emotion-wrought bang-bang delivery can rip up a room. Kevin Bergen... is the high-strung smarm-master who thinks all this up..., Hannah Gold and Dave Johnson... are high-octane university kids who become the faces of this mess, and Maia Desanti is the schoolteacher who throws her pension away. The production is lifted into another zone by Mark Valenzuela's sound, which makes all sorts of things that aren't physically there seem real. You know, just like the bankers did.

Read Howard Shapiro's Entire Philadelphia Inquirer Review

Links to more information about MICROCRISIS:

Purchase Tickets Now

Find Out More About InterAct's Philadelphia Premiere Production

Watch the Video Trailer Online

Watch 6ABC Loves the Arts' Feature Story

Listen to an Interview with Playwright Mike Lew



Friday, January 20, 2012

City Paper calls MICROCRISIS Cast "Stellar" and its Playwright "A True New Theater Original"



Check out what City Paper has to say about InterAct's production of the new satire MICROCRISIS by Mike Lew:

Don't despair if you didn't catch the magical Bi Jean Ngo when she relaunched her Theatre Confetti performance troupe at Underground Arts last week. You'll get more than a few glimpses of the Philadelphia actress when she joins the stellar cast - Kevin Bergen, Maia Desanti, Hannah Gold, Dave Johnson and, most particularly, Frank X - of MICROCRISIS at the Adrienne. This snarky snippet of political/financial intrigue shows off exactly what InterAct Theatre does best: present tart scripts that pit big against small, evil against good. Absurdist playwright Mike Lew and director Seth Rozin fashion a funny global game of cat and mouse amongst lenders and borrowers without a care for anyone (save the laughing-out-loud audiences). Lew is responsible for short, sharply sardonic theater pieces such as IN PARIS YOU WILL FIND MANY BAGUETTES BUT ONLY ONE TRUE LOVE and is a true new theater original.
Read all of City Paper's A&E Recommendations Here 

Links to more information about MICROCRISIS:

Find Out More About InterAct's Philadelphia Premiere

Watch 6ABC Loves the Arts' Feature Story on MICROCRISIS

Listen to an Interview with Playwright Mike Lew

Purchase Tickets



Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Talking with... Mike Lew, Playwright of MICROCRISIS



InterAct Artistic Associate Kittson O'Neill sat down with MICROCRISIS playwright Mike Lew (and an unexpected interlude with InterAct's office cat Gomez) to discuss his inspiration for the play, what an endorsement by Natalie Portman really means to him, and of course, the zombie apocalypse...

Listen now:



Mike Lew, Playwright of MICROCRISIS
Kittson O'Neill, InterAct Artistic Associate

Gomez, InterAct's Office Cat


Links to more information about MICROCRISIS:

Watch 6ABC's Feature Story on MICROCRISIS

Find Out More about InterAct's Philadelphia Premiere

Purchase Tickets Here



Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Adventures of an InterAct Intern!





Adventures of an InterAct Intern

I figure it’s about time to update you all on what’s happening at InterAct! I haven't updated in a while so we are about to go WAY BACK!

THE HOW AND THE WHY opened a few months ago to banging reviews! I was lucky enough to act as the assistant stage manager, sound board op AND I got to play the VERY IMPORTANT part of bartender for approximately 7 seconds. I was lucky enough to be able to lead one of the talk backs while Seth was away too! Long story short I learned SO much and received so many opportunities while working on the show. THE HOW AND THE WHY was the first professional production I have ever been a part of so I absolutely learned a lot and had a blast being a part of something that was so successful.

Not long after THE HOW AND THE WHY closed InterAct hosted NNPN’s National Showcase of New Plays. NNPN is an organization where non-profit theatres from around the country join together to produce and develop new plays. The NNPN Conference was held in November. The purpose of the showcase was to show the members of NNPN new production ready plays that may fit their theatre's mission. The intern's played a huge part in the readings serving as ASM's, readers, house managers and the general go-to people for any questions. Being a part of this conference was an absolute invaluable experience. We got to meet so many theatre professionals from all over the place, work with directors we may have never gotten the opportunity to work with and all in all have an awesome, and bust, week doing what we all love to do.

READ MORE ABOUT NNPN HERE!!! http://www.nnpn.org/about_staff.php


It has been a busy few months to say the least, AND WE ARE ONLY GETTING STARTED. I could go on and on with all the other things the past few months have consisted of but that would make for a very long very unreadable blog! So maybe a second update is in order in the near future.

MICROCRISIS opens next week!!! Come check us out!

P.S Don't forget to check out Wildlife Wednesday on InterAct's Facebook! Cause who doesn't live pictures of cats and dogs.... and sometimes Dany?

See Ya Later Alligator!